factors affecting accuracy of EWT

• Eyewitness testimony


  Evidence given in court by someone who witnessed an event
• Eyewitness testimony could result in convictions
• Misleading information


  Information that can influence and change a person's memory of an event
• Post-event discussion


  The contamination of eyewitness testimony with another witness's memory, reducing accuracy
• Anxiety


  A mental state of arousal, with biological factors like increased heart rate
• Anxiety


  May affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony
• Bartlett's theory of memory

  • Memories are not accurate snapshots, but reconstructive
  • Schemas are packages of information used to understand the world
• Confabulations


  False memories created by the reconstructive nature of memory
• Substitution bias


  The actual memory changes and replaces the old memory
• Response bias


  The memory doesn't change, but the emotional pressure alters the response
• Leading questions


  Questions that imply a certain response and influence the memory reported
• Leading question


  • "How fast were the cars traveling when they smashed into each other?"
• Extreme verbs in leading questions


  Increase the estimated speed of the cars
• Seeing "broken glass" after being asked about "smashing"

  Demonstrates substitution bias, a real change in memory
• Memory conformity


  Witnesses changing their recall to match other witnesses
• Memory conformity study


  • Participants included items they hadn't seen but discussed with another witness
• Weapon focus effect


  Eyewitness is so focused on the weapon that they don't look at the criminal's face
• Anxiety


  May decrease recall due to distraction, or increase recall due to heightened awareness
• Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal


  Suggests an optimal level of anxiety for accurate recall, with too low or too high anxiety reducing accuracy
• Johnson and Scott study


  • Participants were better at identifying a man with a pen than a man with a knife, suggesting weapon focus
• Peters study


  • Recall was worse for identifying a nurse giving an injection than a researcher, suggesting weapon focus
• Yuille and Cutshall study


  • Highly accurate recall from witnesses closest to a real-life deadly shooting, despite high stress
• The cognitive interview is a real-world application of research on eyewitness testimony limitations
• Lab studies on eyewitness testimony have low validity due to lack of consequences
• Demand characteristics in lab studies may lead participants to guess responses the researcher wants
• Research on anxiety and eyewitness testimony may be unethical, causing trauma to participants